Free public use not part of Rockford field house equation

Corina Curry Rockford Register Star @corinacurry

Tuesday

Dec 27, 2016 at 7:54 AMDec 27, 2016 at 5:34 PM

ROCKFORD — Rockford Public Schools spent about $28 million on three new field houses in the past four years, and while the new facilities have been a boon for students and student athletes, free public use is not allowed.

They’re no different than any other athletic space in town. Most facilities — even the ones built using taxpayer dollars like the field houses — charge some type of fee. Some charge for a membership.

The field houses are unique, however, in that they’ve added three indoor running tracks in a town where there used to be only one — the I.D. Pennock Family YMCA in downtown Rockford, which can only be used by members.

The new indoor tracks coupled with this month’s arrival of snow and bitter cold temperatures have some people wondering why the school’s new field houses couldn’t be the community’s new field houses, even if just for a few hours a week.

“It’s not just the field houses and not just the schools,” said Mike Mapes, a longtime runner and community running coach. “Isn’t it about time that we looked at all of the facilities in our community, all of the buildings paid for with tax dollars and asked, ‘How are they being used in the best manner for the public?'”

“The concept of ‘open gym’ isn’t really there. ... What you tend to hear is ‘That’s just too hard to do that,’ rather than ‘How can we get to that point?'”

For the students

Student safety, building security, heating and lighting, liability issues and wear and tear are just some of the reasons school officials give for why the high school’s new field houses are off-limits to the general public.

The facilities can be rented — and there is a sliding scale for nonprofits and government entities — but walk-in use is not an option, officials said.

For starters, the facilities are used regularly by students before and after school and throughout the day. It’s not uncommon to have multiple high school teams from cheerleading and track to basketball sharing the space into the evening.

“First and foremost, that’s what our buildings are for — the students,” said Todd Schmidt, the district’s chief operations officer. “The field houses were built to support the students in their extracurricular activities and physical education so they didn’t have to go to different buildings for practice, which is what was happening because we didn’t have enough space.”

Secondly, but not less important, Schmidt said, is the safety issue.

“Right now, our buildings are secure. We don’t leave our doors open. If someone wants to come in, they need to go through security. We run their names through a system that checks for sex offenders. We can customize it for custody issues, too,” he said. “We go to great lengths to ensure that our students are safe. Once you start opening up the building, it opens you up to vulnerability.”

If the public was allowed to use the field house early in the morning before students arrived and late at night after students left or on weekends, visitors would need to be monitored. That would pose a staffing challenge, Schmidt said, and an additional cost beyond utilities, not to mention the liability concerns.

“This is why there’s a rental rate,” he said. “Now that we’ve built these facilities, we need to maintain them. We had to look at everything and take that into consideration in setting those rates.”

For the community

The School District updated its facility use and rental policy while the field houses were being constructed.

As the former chairman of the board’s operations committee, Tim Rollins said he remembers going over the pros and cons and questions about public use as part of that redrafting process.

“We went through a pretty rigorous process, and we ended up with the three tiers of use,” Rollins said. “There are different fees for different groups, but nothing is free.

“There are costs associated with using a structure that big. Those costs have to come out of our budget. For some groups, we charge less, but we still need to cover our costs.”

Rental fees for the field houses fall in the range of $241 an hour for a nonprofit to $341 for a for-profit entity.

“If we’re going to spend money on providing recreational facilities for the community, that’s just going to come from money we’re not spending on education,” Rollins said. “It’s not the school’s mission.”

Mapes said he understands the economic challenge. He said he understands the security concern, too. To Mapes, these are all issues the community can work out together, if it wanted.

“If you really want to be a transformative community, why wouldn’t you look at that and develop that?” he said. “Is there some cost involved? Sure. Given the potential benefits and the goodwill you’ll create in the community toward yourself and for the community, I’d say that’s an insignificant investment.”

Corina Curry: 815-987-1371; ccurry@rrstar.com; @corinacurry

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